Spring is always late, and some years doesn’t even bother to show up. And, because our spring is usually more like a warm winter, it’s hard to enjoy all the spring-time activities on the calendar. Summer, give or take a week, usually keeps its date with us. It very rarely though, makes an early appearance.

So, after a month filled with rainy cool days of wondering if it would ever make it here this year, summer finally arrived. But, true to form, it refused to show up any earlier than it had to, and my guess is it will leave well before we are ready to see it go. Which leaves us with a very limited amount of time to do all the fun things associated with the lazy and hazy days of summer.

This all leaves me with a sense of urgency to relax and do everything I can possibly do, as soon as I can. I have to take advantage of every beautiful sunny day and go out and enjoy myself doing something that was invented for such a day.

The summer is filled with outdoor concerts, festivals, baseball games, cookouts, amusement parks, summer movies and days at the ocean and lakes. The challenge is making sure I fit them all in between the family vacation, recreational camps, jobs and classes I scheduled. Maybe, at the time, I wanted to make sure I took advantage of everything the short, beautiful summer has to offer. And maybe, to be honest, I learned from past summers and wanted to stay busy so I wouldn’t have to hear about how bored my family is during all those long, hot summer days.

Relaxing on the beach becomes a priority on my list as it does for the majority of the population in southern Maine, not to mention all the tourists. So I pack everything I need to be comfortable in the sand and surf, hop in my NASCAR and head to the beach. On my frenetic drive to relaxation, I dodge people driving various vans, convertibles and SUVs that have boogey boards, beach chairs and coolers in the back seats. I’m sure they all have the same priority and thought as I do about their day at the beach. We all want that premier parking space in the upper lot.

So, given that I have a limited amount of time to do a limitless amount of relaxing and engage in a number of enjoyable activities, I have become more and more stressed and anxious with each passing day of summer. I cringe when someone asks me how my summer is going, because I realize it is going by too quickly and there is still so much to do. Summer is portrayed as a time to relax and enjoy the days. But, given the length of the season, I don’t feel myself relaxing as much as I feel the need to hurry up to do something before it’s too late.

Chances are there will be more than one sunny day during the summer, but the question is how many. It’s a short enough season as it is. With the Maine state motto being, “if you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute,” we just have to hope the odds are in our favor and assume there will be enough sunny days to do all the things we have scheduled on our calendar. It’s just too bad we are beholden to the days on the calendar.